One Can Overcome Bad Aspects of One's Nature

Carlisle Cullen is a centuries' old vampire who aspires to higher things. He figures out a way to live without harming human beings, which most vampires must kill to drink their blood. Instead, Carlisle finds that he can drink the blood of wild animals. He compares this, with some humor, to humans eating a vegetarian diet, living on tofu and beans rather than on meat. Carlisle never takes the life of another human being unless the human is already dying. That is how he goes about assembling his strange and beautiful family. When individuals face death from sickness or accident, Carlisle bites them and "turns" them so they too become vampires. However, Carlisle teaches them this higher way of being, to live on the blood of wild animals instead of harming humans. Carlisle has disciplined himself so well that he can...